Unitel and BICS roam with royalty in Africa

BICS and Angolan mobile operator Unitel have today facilitated what BICS claims to be its first 4G video roaming call in Africa, in the presence of European royalty.

HRH Princess Astrid, Princess of Belgium, oversaw the data roaming session during an official state visit by the Belgian economic trade mission to Angola.

The video call took place on BICS’s LTE signalling platform, and marks the official launch of Unitel’s LTE roaming services.

Amilcar Safeca, deputy CEO and CTO at Unitel, said: “This agreement with BICS will allow us to offer our customers an entirely new range of quality services when abroad. It will also allow visitors in Angola to roam on to Unitel’s network with a very high speed.”

Users of the service are expected to benefit from superfast transmission, as well as access to a platform with the potential for a huge number of further communication services.

Didier Reynders, Belgium’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, participated in the call from Luanda, Angola, with Johan Wouters in Belgium, SVP of operations and customer services at BICS, during the official signature ceremony of the trade mission.

“This landmark partnership marks the next stage of the evolution of the telecoms market in Africa and the further realisation of LTE roaming across the globe, brought about by the increasing usage of internet-enabled mobile or tablet handsets and the high workforce mobility on the continent,” said Daniel Kurgan, CEO at BICS.